Code Name: Emerald (also know as Deep Cover) is a 1985 action-drama film about a spy for the Allies working undercover in Nazi Germany during World War II. The film was directed by Jonathan Sanger, and stars Ed Harris, Max von Sydow, Eric Stoltz, and Patrick Stewart. It was the first theatrical film produced by NBC.
Premise
During World War II and a few months prior to the Normandy landings, Gus Lang, an Allied agent, is sent to occupied France in order to rescue an "overlord" captured by the Germans - one of the key people with intimate knowledge of when and where the D-Day invasion will actually occur. Several people will help him to succeed: a secret friend of the Allies, a vital German officer who is a highly placed mole, and the French resistance. The SS, however, will try to block their plans.
Plot
World War II, year 1944. Nazi Germany knows the Allies will launch Operation Overlord - an all-out invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe via France. To learn the actual date of D-Day and landing sites in advance, a cordial but uneasy partnership has been created between the German army (Col. Brausch (Max von Sydow)), the Gestapo (Hoffman (Horst Buchholz)) and the S.S. (Ritter (Helmut Berger)), with Hoffman in charge. Six times so far they've failed to capture an "Overlord" i.e. someone who knows the information they want, and the pressure is on. Brausch tells Hoffman they have an agent working in British Intelligence, codenamed Emerald (Gus Lang (Ed Harris)), whom they then task with delivering to them an "Overlord". But Lang/Emerald is really a double-agent who is working for the Allies. Patrick Callaghan, who is motivated by money, is Lang's contact with Brausch. Lang passes on fake details of a D-Day rehearsal including a ship carrying Overlorders, and suggests that a German E-boat squadron (heavily armed fast attack boats) should intercept them. Because Lang has invented the information, the E-boats will miss the ship but Lang would still appear to have fulfilled his mission. However, Lang's superior, Col. Peters (Patrick Stewart), says they will send a real ship, manned by unknowing sacrifices and certainly no Overlorders. Allied military command decides to hold a real D-Day rehearsal, for Omaha Beach, which naturally would include many Overlords. Peters refuses to inform the military of his intelligence scheme, telling Lang that there's a high-level Nazi secretly working for the Allies (due to disaffection with Nazi ideology) whose identity must be protected at all costs. This means that the exercise is attacked by the German E-boats and many Overlorders are killed in action. Several soldiers are captured by the Germans, including Lt. Andy Wheeler (Eric Stoltz), a U.S. army signalman whose job means he has intimate knowledge of the D-Day landings including the date and targets.
Wheeler is taken for interrogation to an old castle in Paris which is the Gestapo H.Q. Wheeler refuses to reveal any information to Ritter, not even his name and rank; Ritter has only found out his prisoner's name and rank by interrogating the other captured prisoners, and deduced from his signalman's job that the Nazis have captured an Overlord at last. Brausch, Hoffman, Ritter decide to include Lang/Emerald closely in their team because Lang, having grown up in the USA, can befriend Wheeler and get him to talk. They also know that the British would like Lang involved, believing him to be their own agent. Thus the Germans feel they have the upper hand and merely wait for Lang to arrive in France. Before leaving England, Lang is instructed that if Wheeler has talked he must report it at once and Operation Overlord would be delayed, and it would take months before it could be mounted again. Lang is also ordered that, if Wheeler hasn't yet talked, he may need to kill Wheeler to prevent him from talking. To keep Wheeler from being tortured, British Intelligence tells Lang they have contrived to add a false medical condition into Wheeler's army medical record. This medical condition (cardiac arrhythmia) can't be easily diagnosed. Lang "procures" Wheeler's medical record for the Nazis who do not torture Wheeler.